Kim Houston
BREAKING THE STIGMA AROUND MENTAL HEALTH
Kim Houston at home in Durban © Thom Pierce 2023
You don't have to be changing the world every day to be an Actionist. Even just once a year is enough. And the world doesn’t have to be the whole world, it can just be the world around you, and the lives of people in your own community.
In 2016 Kim Houston lost her baby when she was 6 months pregnant. She had struggled with depression and anxiety before, but the loss pushed her to a whole new depth.
“My actual journey started when I lost my baby. That was the most horrific and dark time of my life. Nobody knew how to comfort me.”
On her road to recovery, she experienced the inevitable ups and downs. For years she battled to come to terms with what happened until, in 2020, she had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised for 2 weeks.
That was 3 years ago and these days Kim will be completely open about the fact that things are not always easy. She still struggles and still has bouts of terrible depression, but now she has decided to talk about it.
The one thing that concerned her the most was that in her community in Durban, people didn’t talk about mental health. It was a subject that was swept under the rug and left for each person to deal with on their own. Kim could see people in her community battling, with no way to find help and nobody to talk to.
At 3 am one September morning, Kim woke up with an idea. Not just a fragment of an idea but a fully formed, intricate vision of what she needed to do. In her mind, she saw an event in the community hall with guest speakers, music, fancy tableware and a large crowd of people sitting around talking openly about mental health. It was called “The Tea of Hope”.
Within two weeks she had planned and organised the entire event, reaching out to friends and family for help, and asking the community for donations of food and equipment. She had guest speakers and musical acts. She put the tickets up for sale to cover some of her own costs, advertising them on Facebook. They sold out in 5 days.
“People's lives and eyes were opened to their mental health journey and wellness. That was the end goal. If I could just change one person's perspective on how they view mental health. I wanted to be that person.”
The first two Teas of Hope were major successes by anyone's standards, sold-out events that got a community talking openly about mental health issues. So this year Kim will be hosting her third annual Tea of Hope, this time only for Women, on the 29th of October, with a Men’s event in November.
She may not have changed the whole world, but Kim Houston has, for one day a year, reached out and offered a safe space to talk, for a community that desperately needs it.
